Message so Powerful

This is a powerful message in our modern society. We seemed to have lost our bearing & our sense of direction.


One young academically excellent person went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the first interview, the director did the last interview, made the last decision. The director discovered from the CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent all the way, from the secondary school until the postgraduate research, never had a year when he did not score.
The director asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "none".

The director asked, "Was it your father who paid for your school fees?" The youth answered, "My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.

The director asked, "Where did your mother work?" The youth answered, "My mother worked as clothes cleaner. The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

The director asked, "Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?" The youth answered, "Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Furthermore, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go back today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.*

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back, he happily requested his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to the kid.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother shivered when they were cleaned with water.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fee. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his graduation, academic excellence and his future.

After finishing the cleaning of his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, asked: " Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered, " I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

The Director asked, " please tell me your feelings."

The youth said, Number 1, I know now what is appreciation. Without my mother, there would not the successful me today. Number 2, by working together and helping my mother, only I now realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done. Number 3, I have come to appreciate the importance and value of family relationship.

The director said, "This is what I am looking for to be my manager.
I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life. You are hired.

Later on, this young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, may be successful for a while, but eventually would not feel sense of achievement. He will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying the kid instead?*

You can let your kid live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your kid learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

Life - A roller coaster?

"They" say life is one big learning curve, well I prefer to think of it as a roller coaster.

First you decide you are going to participate
You strap yourself in and wait for some unseen force to propel you forwards
In the beginning it is slow going, you work hard to get to the top of the first obstacle - and then hey
Free wheeling down the other side.
And if you're lucky you can gain enough momentum to keep going up the next slope

And you know when most people stop?

That's right - before they even buy a ticket. Of those who do pay their money and climb aboard - most will give up on the first obstacle. They'd sooner get off and clamber back to where they were. The few who remain on board are the "lucky" ones of course. They get glimpses of the great things they can do and achieve, they know they have a way to go and many more hills to climb - but once on board, nothing is going to stop them reaching their destination.

On the roller coaster of life, have you bought your ticket yet? Let me know

Being honest with yourself

What you would not have done to yourselves, never do unto others.
Alexander Severus

You would never lie and cheat to yourself, nor would you stab yourself in the back by speaking ill of yourself in the company of your fellow men. So why then fellow comrades do you speak ill of your neighbors - surely it is the same thing? You have proven yourself to be untrustworthy, that you are willing to undermine your comrades and fellow soldiers - even though you took an oath to honor the legion. In the heat of battle we need to be able to trust each other - those who are not able to trust themselves and treat themselves fairly or properly cannot hope to put others needs ahead of their own.

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Are you honest with yourself? Really? Can you look at yourself in the mirror and meet your own eyes? Yes / No
In what ways have you let yourself down over the last 10 days?
Have you done all that you could over the last 10 days, or have there been periods of doing less than you know you are capable of?
Have you complained about everyone and everything to anyone who will listen?
Have you stuck to your new disciplines or are you pretending to do so? What do I mean? Say you wanted to give up smoking, and you had planned that on this day - 70 days ago, you would have cut down or completely stopped smoking by now. Have you? What about those clients you said you were going to call and speak to - not to sell them anything, but to see if there was anything you could do to help them grow their business - say if you saw a prospect that could benefit them more than they could have benefited you? Those are the disciplines I am talking about.
I'm not saying it is easy because it isn't, life can and does get in the way - but we do need to be honest with ourselves. When we can be honest and above board in our dealings with ourselves, then we know exactly where we stand and we are more likely to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and go again.
Imagine you had been going for a walk every morning, and then you had gotten sick and one day off had turned to a month, it can be easy to say - Well I've not been feeling very well and I really don't have the time... it can also be easy to be honest with ourselves and say, I have been slacking off, so you lay out your clothes the night before, set the alarm clock for your walking time and then get up and get going when the alarm goes off.
Being honest with yourself - that is one of the major keys to success
Treating others as you would treat yourself is another.
Which is something to think about.